


It Makes My Brain Whirl

by Poemsingreenink



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Homophobia, M/M, Religion, homophobic parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 16:27:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5750128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver and Connor discuss weddings. It’s complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Makes My Brain Whirl

**Author's Note:**

> This fic, along with many other baffling things, will not be offering an open bar.

“How do you not believe in marriage?”

Connor was flat on his back, tangled in their sheets with Oliver’s head pillowed on his stomach. He wondered if this was the kind of conversation he was supposed to be sitting up for, but quickly decided he was too comfortable to move.

“You sound so shocked.”

The response drifted lazily through the air, but without a face visual Connor found he couldn’t tell exactly what Oliver thought about his outburst.

“You just,“ Connor paused. "You seem like one of those people who believes in marriage.”

"Why?”

There was a tension bridge being built across the width of Connor’s shoulder blades, and he wondered if there was any way to derail this conversation with sex. If this was a slip up that led to a fight he didn’t want it.

“You get up at a reasonable hour every morning. You actually put your appointments into your phone, and you only own gray suits. Responsible people believe in marriage things.”

The laugh that burst out of Oliver sent vibrations through Connor’s body. The tension bridge collapsed, and Connor blindly reached for what he hoped was Oliver’s hair. He ended up with his palm splayed across the other man’s face.

“No need to smother me,” Oliver said. He nipped Connor’s thumb, and then entwined their fingers. “What were you reaching for?”

“Your hair. Can you just-” He motioned in the direction of Oliver’s head, and then hummed happily when he felt the soft strands under his palm.

“You do most of those things,” Oliver said. “Your defense makes no sense. Are you sure you want to be a lawyer? And that’s also not what I said. I said I don’t believe in _weddings_.”

“Because you’ve never seen one in the wild?”

“Oh my god, really?”

“I’m sure we could find a picture of on one online,” Connor continued. Smirking even though nothing but the ceiling could see it. “Most of them might be kind of blurry, what with weddings being so elusive and all, but-”

Oliver snorted. “I wish they were elusive. They’re too damn expensive and too stressful for anyone to deal with, let alone me. It would be too hard.”

Connor ran his finger along the shell of Oliver’s ear, and stretched his thumb further out to press into the tense neck muscles. “From what I’ve seen you handle stress just fine. What would be hard about it?”

“My family,” Oliver said. “My family would be hard.”

This time Connor caught the tone bundled up in Oliver’s words, and he frowned.

“They’re not good about me. About me being gay I mean. So it would be hard.”

Connor dragged his hand through Oliver’s hair, unsure of how to respond. He was still a novice when it came to comfort, and his success rate with Oliver was disappointingly low.

“They love me,” Oliver rushed out. "I’ve never questioned that, and they’ll want to meet you eventually. They don’t want me to be alone or unhappy, but a wedding is a line they can’t cross. If I ever had one they wouldn’t come.”

“Screw them,” Connor said. "Less people to worry about.”

He could feel Oliver shifting, and his stomach twisted at the idea that he was about to crawl across the bed and lie face-to-face with Connor. He couldn’t be trusted to do comfort correctly with Oliver staring right at him. He pressed his fingers into the other man’s skull hoping the pressure would keep him in place.

“No. It’s more complicated than that.” To Connor’s great relief Oliver stilled under his hand. “I know I’m supposed to push through it, give my parents the middle finger, live my own life, do what I want blah, blah, blah, but I can’t. I love them too much. And who wants to hold a wedding built on spite? It would just twist the whole thing.”

“They might change their minds,” Connor said, unsure of where to step for fear of crushing something delicate underfoot. His family hadn’t batted an eye at his sexuality, but that seemed like the right thing to say. The comforting thing to say. “People change.”

“They won’t. Not with this. It’s too hard for them. To them a life, even a legal marriage, between two men is different than a wedding. God is tied into a wedding the way He isn’t tied into tax benefits or hospital visits. Coming to a wedding for two men or two women would be endorsing something they don’t believe is right in the eyes of God.”

The last time Connor had gone to church he’d jerked off one of his old lacrosse teammates in the confessional booth. There was a Celtic cross hanging in the living room back in Michigan, but it was a family heir loom and as his grandmother was fond of pointing out, ‘an ugly one at that.’

“I don’t really understand, Ollie.”

“It’s okay,” Oliver said. “I didn’t understand it either for a long time. It’s complicated.”

“Do you believe them?” Connor asked.

“About God? No. My parents are wrong. They’re just too scared of what’s on the other side of a few boundaries to test them, and I don’t care enough about this to go to war. It would just hurt me.”

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Connor said, softly. He lost his touch on Oliver’s hair when the other man rolled over, and kissed Connor’s stomach.

“I’ve never really liked weddings,” Connor admitted.

"You mean the ones you’ve spotted living free in the wild?”

“Yep, those,“ Connor said. "Walsh’s…now that I think about it I don’t think any of us like them. My mom talks a big game, but she and my dad didn’t have a wedding. I don’t think they even had a second date, and Gemma eloped.”

“Really?”

“She said being the center of attention in a puffy white dress would give her a rash.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Oliver said.

“Nope,” Connor agreed. He stretched his head back all the way to read the time; 3:21 a.m. He would be feeling this late night conversation later. "Wouldn’t want that at all.”


End file.
